


new york

by watercolorgalaxies



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: Angst, Breakup, Emison - Freeform, F/F, Flashbacks, Heartbreak, Lesbian, Love, New York City, St. Vincent, city
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-15 01:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14148690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watercolorgalaxies/pseuds/watercolorgalaxies
Summary: "new york isn't new york without you, love."au where alison and emily move to the city after graduation. takes place after their breakup. angst, a bit of fluff. a bit smutty. somewhat based off the song "new york" by st. vincent.





	new york

Emily stared at the floor. These were the sort of days where she felt the most empty, the ones where she had nothing to do but remember things she longed to forget. 

The lights were out, and sheets were strewn about her New York apartment. Dull green plants aptly sat at the windowsill, covered in a thin layer of dust. She couldn't make herself clean anything. Hell, it took most of her energy to get out of bed. A faint stream of light seeped from the space between her curtains, but most of the room was dark as night. 

And in this darkness, she saw her again. Alison DiLaurentis. 

She magnified every emotion in Emily's mind. Misery. Frustration. Rage. Fear. But the one that rose above all the others was absolute infatuation. 

Every day she hated herself for letting her go. They broke up a year previously, and Emily was still hopelessly in love, as she always was. Even with Paige and Maya and Sabrina, everything came back to Alison. But while Alison was able to date around with no pain, Emily was convinced she was the only one for her. Time did nothing but prove it.

Her crush on the gorgeous blonde was shallower in her high school days. Alison used to treat her like garbage and Emily was mainly drawn to her beauty and external charm, but as she became a softer, wiser soul, Emily found herself falling in love in a way more powerful than anything she'd ever felt. 

The aftermath of their breakup was different. Maya left her scarred, and Emily hated to admit it, but the pain she unwillingly inflicted upon her would have been far less intense if they broke up normally. If Maya hadn't (her stomach still crawled at this) died. 

Paige's departure from Rosewood was tragically anticlimactic. Sara lied about her whole identity. Her fling with Sabrina simply faded. When she thought about it, Emily realized she never really had a one hundred percent normal breakup before Alison. She never had much of a choice. She felt constantly powerless. Maybe that was how relationships were supposed to feel, but it drove her mad. 

A was gone, but Emily still was a side character in the story of her own life. She lacked the control and strength to fight it, and those thoughts led to a feeling of constant misery. Like she was a firefly finally set free from a jar, only to be locked up in a different one. 

But she had the _memories_. She could lock them up in her head, safe and sound, and nobody could hurt them. She couldn't fall asleep by Ali's side, but she could dream of it, and that was something nobody could ever take away from her. If she romanticized the past enough, maybe it would feel real. Maybe one day she would wake up in her own head and believe she was in heaven. 

Ali was so fucking special to her. Nothing changed that. And nothing ever would, or even could. 

Emily leaned back and laid down on her bed, flat on her back. Alison was so long gone, but she still _felt_ her presence. She still heard her voice. She still felt her arms, and although it was in the past it really didn't feel like it passed. Every small detail was permanently written on her heart.

Alison knew how to erase these little love letters. For her they were pencil marks, for Emily they were tattoos that she couldn't get rid of, no matter how hard she tried. Emily was one of a dozen options of Ali's, but all Emily could see was her. Her eyes burned and welled up, and she felt those all too familiar tears of mascara stream down her cheeks. 

Maybe in a different universe this would be beautiful. But in this one, it couldn't be. 

_And all at once they were eighteen again, their fingers intertwined as they sat amongst a pile of cardboard boxes. They were free, they were free, no chains held them to the Rosewood ground anymore, they were in school forging their own paths and here nobody knew them and they were finally free._

_The girl in her bed. Alison DiLaurentis. The queen bee who toyed with Emily's heart like her entire existence was a stage, her heart that of a doll. The girl who glamorously disappeared. The modern day Marilyn who died young. The traumatized victim who lost the youth in her cheeks, her skin, her slightest gestures. The girl with rumors following her around like awful, nasty insects she tried to crush. The lover._

_She had looked into her eyes a million times over the years but she never failed to melt for her. Her fluttering lashes, the way her smile shone. Her entire love was a cliche._

Silly girl. Alison was gone. She lost her. Again.  

She was fucking stupid. A timid soul, albeit a stupid one. 

_The sunny days of classes and coffee shops and city talk, the rainy days of long video chats with Aria, Spencer, and Hanna, the stormy days where Emily would hold Alison all night until she became deaf to the thunder and blind to the lightning. The gorgeous simplicity. How she envied her past self and her calm thoughts._

_The night they snuck around Fifth Avenue and made out under the streetlights, even though people probably were watching. Alison made her fearless, but put her anger at ease. Alison set her free, only to lock her in a bigger, worse prison. Emily was a sky of blue-black like the bruises she lacked, and laughs of electricity and tears of rain. Alison was the sea of golden shores and tranquility and depth: so terrifying but endlessly fascinating with beauty beyond anything ever beheld._

In her heart, Alison was still right there. Her mind knew she was a million miles away.  

 


End file.
